In each of these cases, the American Surety Company of New York seeks to be relieved from a judgment in favor of the Baldwins entered against it by an Idaho
The bond was given upon the appeal of the Singer Sewing Machine Company and Anderson, its employee, to the Supreme Court of Idaho from a judgment for $19,500 recovered against them by the Baldwins in an Idaho district court for an automobile collision. The defendants had given a joint notice of appeal "from that certain judgment . . . against the defendants and each of them, and from the whole thereof." Pursuant to the statutes (Idaho Comp. Stat. §§ 7154 and 7155), two bonds were given by the Surety Company, both being executed only by it. One was in the sum of $300 for costs; the other was the supersedeas bond in the sum of $25,000 here in question, copied in the margin.
The Surety Company concedes that by executing the supersedeas bond it became, by the laws of Idaho, a party to the litigation;
First. The certiorari granted in No. 3 to review the judgment rendered by the Supreme Court of Idaho on May 2, 1931 (50 Idaho 606; 299 Pac. 341) must be dismissed for failure to make seasonably the federal claim. The proceedings culminating in that judgment were these. On June 26, 1930, three days after the entry by the Idaho district court of judgment against the Surety Company on the supersedeas bond, it filed a motion in that court to vacate and set aside the judgment. The grounds there urged in support of the motion were wholly state grounds. They were that the judgment was void, because there had been no breach of condition of the bond, properly construed; that the judgment had been entered without notice to either the Surety Company or the Singer Company; and that the enforcement of the judgment would be contrary to good conscience and equity. After hearing arguments on the motion the Idaho district court ordered that the judgment be vacated and set aside, and that the execution issued pursuant thereto be quashed. The Baldwins appealed to the Supreme Court of Idaho; and upon the presentation of their appeal no federal question was raised by either party. The Supreme Court, on May 2, 1931, reversed the order vacating the judgment. It declared that the only issue before the trial court on motion to vacate was its own jurisdiction to render the judgment against the Surety Company on the supersedeas undertaking; that such jurisdiction existed by virtue of the Surety Company's execution of the undertaking in
The Surety Company petitioned for a rehearing. In that petition, besides reiterating several of its previous contentions, it urged, for the first time, that the rendition of the judgment on its undertaking violated the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
Second. In No. 21, the Circuit Court of Appeals should have affirmed the decree of the federal court for Idaho which denied the Surety Company's application for an interlocutory injunction and dismissed the bill. For the federal remedy was barred by the proceedings taken in the state court which ripened into a final judgment constituting res judicata.
The Surety Company was at liberty to resort to the federal court regardless of citizenship, because entry of the judgment without notice. unless authorized by it, violated the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, compare National Exchange Bank v. Wiley, 195 U.S. 257; Cooper v. Newell, 173 U.S. 555. And it was at liberty to invoke the federal remedy without first pursuing that provided by state procedure. Simon v. Southern Ry. Co., 236 U.S. 115; Atchison, Topeka & Santa
The Supreme Court of Idaho had jurisdiction over the parties and of the subject matter in order to determine whether the trial court had jurisdiction. Clearly, the motion to vacate, made on a general appearance, and the appeal from the order thereon, were no less effective to confer jurisdiction for that purpose than were the special appearance and motion to quash and dismiss held sufficient in Baldwin v. Iowa State Traveling Men's Assn., 283 U.S. 522. And there was an actual adjudication in the state court of the question of the jurisdiction of the trial court to enter judgment. The scope of the issues presented involved an adjudication of that issue. Compare Napa Valley Elec. Co. v. Railroad Commn., 251 U.S. 366; Grubb v. Public Utilities Commn., 281 U.S. 470, 477-478. The Supreme Court of Idaho did not refuse to adjudicate that question when it declined to "construe the legal effect of the undertaking in question further than to examine it in aid of determining the sole question of the court's jurisdiction to hear and determine the motion for judgment thereon." It narrowed the issue, according to the State procedure, by separating, in effect, the question of jurisdiction from that of liability. It held that the status of the Surety Company as a party to the litigation, by virtue of its execution of the bond in the cause, necessarily persisted, although its liability may have been limited by the terms of the bond. With the soundness of the decision we are not here concerned. It is enough that the court did not, as the Surety Company
The full faith and credit clause, together with the legislation pursuant thereto, applies to judicial proceedings of a state court drawn in question in an independent proceeding in the federal courts. Act of May 26, 1790, c. 11; Act of March 27, 1804, c. 56, § 2; Rev. Stat. § 905; Mills v. Duryee, 7 Cranch 481, 485; Insurance Co. v. Harris, 97 U.S. 331, 336. Compare Bradford Electric Light Co. v. Clapper, 286 U.S. 145, 155. The principles of res judicata apply to questions of jurisdiction as well as to other issues. Baldwin v. Iowa State Traveling Men's Assn., 283 U.S. 522. They are given effect even where the proceeding in the federal court is to enjoin the enforcement of a state judgment, if the issue was made and open to litigation in the original action, or was determined in an independent proceeding in the state courts. See Marshall v. Holmes, 141 U.S. 589, 596; Fidelity & Deposit Co. v. Gaston, Williams & Wigmore, 13 F.2d 267, aff'd per curiam, id., 268.
The practice prescribed was constitutional. Due process requires that there be an opportunity to present every available defense; but it need not be before the entry of judgment. York v. Texas, 137 U.S. 15. Cf. Grant Timber & Mfg. Co. v. Gray, 236 U.S. 133; Bianchi v. Morales, 262 U.S. 170. See also Phillips v. Commissioner, 283 U.S. 589, 596-597; Coffin Bros. & Co. v. Bennett, 277 U.S. 29. An appeal on the record which included the bond afforded an adequate opportunity. Thus, the entry of judgment was consistent with due process of law. We need not enquire whether its validity may not rest also on the ground that the Surety Company, by giving the bond, must be taken to have consented to the state procedure. Compare United Surety Co. v. American Fruit Product Co., 238 U.S. 140, 142; Corn Exchange Bank v. Commissioner, 280 U.S. 218, 223. The opportunity afforded by
In No. 3, writ of certiorari dismissed.
In No. 21, decree reversed.
FootNotes
Whereas, the defendant, Singer Sewing Machine Company, a corporation, in the above entitled action has appealed to the Supreme Court of the State of Idaho from the judgment made and entered against it in the above entitled action and in the above entitled court in favor of the plaintiffs in said action on the 31st day of May, 1928, for the sum of Nineteen Thousand Five Hundred ($19,500.00) Dollars and for Seventy-three and 70/100 ($73.70) Dollars costs in said suit, making a total of Nineteen Thousand Five Hundred and Seventy-three and 70/100 ($19,573.70) Dollars, and from the whole of said judgment;
And whereas, the said appellant, Singer Sewing Machine Company, a corporation, is desirous of staying the execution of said judgment so appealed from;
Now, therefore, the undersigned American Surety Company, a corporation authorized to, and doing business in the State of Idaho, in consideration of the premises and of such appeal on the part of said appellant, Singer Sewing Machine Company, a corporation, does hereby acknowledge itself firmly bound in the sum of Twenty-five Thousand ($25,000.00) Dollars, gold coin of the United States, that if the said judgment appealed from, or any part thereof, be affirmed, or the appeal dismissed, the appellant will pay in gold coin of the United States of America, the amount directed to be paid as to which said judgment shall be affirmed, if affirmed only in part, and all damages and costs which may be awarded against the appellant upon the appeal, and that if the said appellant does not make such payment within thirty days from the filing of the remittitur from the Supreme Court in the court from which the appeal is taken, judgment may be entered on motion of the respondents in their favor and against the undersigned surety for the said sum of Nineteen Thousand Five Hundred Seventy-three and 70/100 ($19,573.70) Dollars, together with the interest that may be due thereon and the damages and costs which may be awarded against the said appellant, Singer Sewing Machine Company, upon the appeal.
In Witness Whereof, the said American Surety Company, has caused its name and seal to be attached hereto by its proper officers and agents at Boise, Idaho, this 28th day of August, 1928.
Compare the effect, under Idaho law, of a decision on a motion to set aside a judgment because of the mistake, inadvertence, or excusable neglect of the defendant, or to allow an answer to the merits to be interposed after judgment where summons was not served personally on the defendant. Motions of this kind are allowed by express statute. Idaho Comp. Stat., § 6726. They present a matter for judicial discretion, Mortgage Co. Holland America v. Yost, 39 Idaho 489; 228 Pac. 282; and their determination does not bar a renewal motion. See Dellwo v. Petersen, 34 Idaho 697; 203 Pac. 472. But motions of this kind are to be distinguished from those attacking the judgment as void for want of jurisdiction. Armitage v. Horseshoe Bend Co., Ltd., 35 Idaho 179; 204 Pac. 1073; Shumake v. Shumake, 17 Idaho 649; 107 Pac. 42.
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